


left to suffer long about you

by outruntheavalanche



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Detroit, Friendship, Gen, Internalized Biphobia, Kidnapping, M/M, Pre-Poe Dameron/Finn, Private Investigators, pre-pre-slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:42:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7345324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He looks like someone important, someone who could help Finn find Rey.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	left to suffer long about you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Franzeska](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzeska/gifts).



> This is kind of an introduction to a longer ’verse (which I haven't written yet). I was originally going to do a vid but it wasn't coming together the way I wanted, so I scrapped it and whipped this up in one night. 
> 
> Title from "Deep Red Bells," by Neko Case.
> 
> Briefest of references to the [wife-beater](http://nullrefer.com/?https://briefsandbeaters.com/history-wife-beater-tank-top/). Went with this terminology because of the time period this is set in, but willing to listen.

When Finn opens his eyes and lifts his head from the cold, unforgiving asphalt, he realizes it’s day. Intrusive, unwelcome sunlight stabs his eyes, nearly rendering him blind, and he finds himself longing for the return of unconsciousness. 

At least if he were unconscious, he wouldn’t have to deal with this throbbing ache in the back of his head where Kylo’s goons had clubbed him. And he wouldn’t have to think about how Kylo and his goons had made off with Rey. 

Finn lets his eyes drift shut and he lowers his cheek to the cool pavement for just a moment’s rest. He certainly could use it after the night he’s had.

 _Rey. **Rey**! Damn it, damn it to hell._

Finn opens his eyes again.

A blurry figure crouches down in front of him and peers at him like he’s a sideshow in the carnival that’d just rolled through town the other day.

Finn thinks he should be offended by the stranger’s curiosity in him. And he _would_ be if he weren’t so damn tired all of a sudden. 

“Hey, buddy. You okay? Buddy, c’mon—”

Finn closes his eyes again but manages to rasp out, “I’m not your buddy.”

Everything goes blissfully, mercifully blank around him.

***

When he wakes this time, Finn finds that he’s in a bed. A nice one at that. Not the kind of rickety cot he slept in when he lived on old lady Phasma’s orchard. And certainly not the kind of militaresque bunks that he stayed at when he was part of Kylo’s group.

Finn thinks he could stay here forever, just curled up in this fluffy, downy, decadently comfortable bed.

“Ah, Sleeping Beauty awakes,” comes a familiar voice.

Finn realizes it’s the man who found him unconscious in the alley.

A man comes over to Finn’s side and presses the rim of a glass against his mouth. “Here, buddy, drink up.”

Finn gratefully accepts the water and chugs it down, dribbling it down his chin and the front of his shirt. He doesn’t care. He feels like he’s been wandering through the desert for the last forty years.

“What happened,” Finn finally asks, when he’s had his fill. “Who are you? How’d you find me? Where’s Rey?”

The man flashes Finn a puzzled look. “Rey? Who’s Rey?”

“My friend, she was with me at the jazz club, we got jumped by Kylo and his group of no-good lowlifes. We were—” Finn tries to scramble out of the bed as he relives that night out with Rey that had been so cruelly cut short by Kylo Ren.

“I didn’t see anybody with you,” the man says, holding a hand out to Finn as if he’s a spooked horse that needs calming. 

Finn bristles but bites down on the insult bubbling up on the tip of his tongue. The man’s clothing is impeccable and his hair is neatly coiffed. He looks expensive. He looks like someone important, someone who could help Finn find Rey.

“What’s your name?” Finn asks, pushing himself up slowly to lean back against a mound of pillows. 

There are real, honest-to-God _pillows_ at his back. Finn can hardly remember what sleeping on a soft mattress piled with pillows and blankets feels like. If it’s as heavenly as this bed feels, Finn might never want to leave.

“Poe. Poe Dameron. You?” Dameron extends a hand, tips of his fingers stained dark with newsprint, to Finn.

“Finn,” he says, grasping Dameron’s hand firmly, shaking. 

_Never underestimate the power of a firm handshake. A man’s handshake says something about him, about the strength of his character._ Probably the only lesson Phasma had ever imparted that Finn took to heart. 

“Finn…?” 

“Just Finn.” He lets go of Dameron’s hand and settles back against the pillows. His head doesn’t hurt as acutely as it did before, but there’s a steady pulse of pain at the base of his skull where Kylo’s man, Hux, whacked him on the back of his head.

Dameron sits back and unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt to roll the sleeves up his forearms. He’s got a silver star surrounded by a navy circle inked onto his arm.

“Air force,” Finn questions, eyeing the ink.

“Yep,” says Dameron, leaning back and propping his feet up on the end of the bed, near Finn’s legs. “Served two tours of duty in the war before getting shot down over France. Escaped with a Purple Heart.”

“It must’ve been something, fighting in the war,” Finn says. “You’re a hero.”

Dameron chuckles, flashing a wry smile. “Depends on who you ask,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Now, about this friend of yours…”

***

Finn sits at the table in Dameron’s bright, sunlit kitchen and pushes scrambled eggs and bacon around on a plate. He hasn't felt much like eating since Rey got taken, but he knows he has to get something in his stomach. 

Dameron sits opposite him, booted feet propped up on the table, silent but for the rustling of a newspaper. Occasionally he licks a fingertip and flips a page.

Finn glances back down at his plate and the untouched eggs and bacon. He wants to ask Dameron about the war, what it was like fighting in it. Why he came to Michigan, of all places. Finn and Rey have been trying to leave all their lives; why would someone like Poe Dameron settle here? He doesn't know what’s acceptable, though. Dameron seems well-adjusted, but he might not take kindly to strangers prying into his past.

Finn finally manages to force himself to fork a bit of eggs into his mouth.

“Enjoying your breakfast?” Finn starts, silence broken, and looks up. Dameron is looking back, his gaze penetrating. “You’re awful quiet,” Dameron says.

“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” Finn mutters, returning his attention to the food. It’s passable. “Like finding Rey.”

“We’ll find your friend,” Dameron promises, kicking his feet off the table. 

Dameron sets the paper down and gets up, coming around to Finn’s side. He puts a hand on Finn’s shoulder and squeezes, and Finn doesn't know what to do with this. They’re not friends—they’re not really even acquaintances either—but it feels _nice_. It feels nice to know somebody’s on Finn’s side.

It doesn't hurt that he’s handsome as hell either—

Finn shoves that thought away violently. Best to not even go there. 

Dameron slips his hand off Finn’s shoulder and Finn finds himself resenting the sudden loss of contact. 

Finn shovels down another mouthful of eggs and then pushes his plate aside. “You ready to get going then?” 

“You’ve hardly ate,” Dameron points out, gesturing to Finn’s mostly-still-full plate.

“If I sit around any longer, I’m gonna lose my mind,” Finn says, getting up and wiping his hands off on his shirt. “I need to feel like I’m getting something done. Otherwise, I’ll just think about Rey somewhere alone, maybe hurt. Maybe worse. And I can’t. I can’t do that.”

Dameron nods slowly. “You really care about her,” he says. “She’s special to you. Girlfriend? Fiancée?” he asks.

Finn sighs. When they were just kids growing up next door to one another on Longfellow Street, they played out all their fantasies, all their hopes and dreams. In their own little world, Finn’s parents were alive, Rey’s daddy hadn’t disappeared, her cousin hadn’t run off on her, and they were happy. In that little world they’d created, up in a treehouse in Finn’s backyard, he gave her a plastic Cracker Jack ring and told her he’d marry her.

Then they climbed down from Finn’s treehouse and reality sank back in.

And now… Now Rey is gone.

“She’s the only friend I have,” Finn admits.

Dameron’s face goes carefully blank but for the determined fire in his eyes. “Well, you’ve got one more friend now,” he says, clapping Finn on the shoulder. “Let’s find Rey.”

***

Finn recounts with Poe the places he’d been with Rey the day she went missing. They’d gone to the jazz club that evening, and the next afternoon they were going to sneak into Briggs Stadium to watch the Tigers play the White Sox. When Finn went to get her the next morning, he was greeted by her frantic Aunt Leia. Rey had gone out to retrieve the mail that morning and she hadn’t come back.

“They don’t think it’s serious,” Finn says, sinking deeply into Dameron’s sofa and frowning at the floorboards. “Cops her aunt talked to said she’s probably a runaway like her cousin Ben and brushed her off.”

“And you want me to find her,” Dameron concludes. He steps in front of a window and the sunlight makes him glow.

Finn looks back down at the floorboards and twists his hands in his lap.

“I can pay you,” he insists, glancing up. Dameron turns away, like he hadn’t wanted to be caught looking.

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Dameron says.

“You don't think she’s alive?” Finn crosses his arms and fights the sick feeling that threatens to sweep over him and pull him out to sea.

“No, not necessarily. It’s just going to take a little bit of work,” he says. “I might need to call in reinforcements.”

“I’ll take all the help I can get,” Finn says.

Dameron moves away from the window and Finn’s almost disappointed. He’s wearing a faded wife-beater— that had probably once been white—and brown trousers, and it’s taking everything in Finn not to blatantly run his eyes along the lines of the tattoos on his arms. He wants to ask about them—were they all from his time in the Air Force? were some of them drunken mistakes?—but, again, he doesn't know Dameron well enough to begin prying.

“I’ll find your friend,” Dameron says, joining Finn on the sofa. He puts an arm around his shoulders and gives a reassuring squeeze.

“I know. I believe you,” Finn says, suddenly very aware of their close proximity. 

Finn swallows down any urge to act on his growing attraction toward the private investigator and instead refocuses on the problem at hand. Anyway, Dameron might not be so willing to help Finn if he found out exactly the kind of guy Finn is.

Dameron slips his arm away and gets up, pacing over to a desk. He picks up a pad of paper and a pen. 

“You write down everything you can remember about the last time you saw Rey,” he says, pushing the paper and pen into Finn’s hands. “I’m gonna call in some favors with a few of my old buddies.”

He winks at Finn and slips out of the room.

Finn looks down at the notepad. Sighing, he picks up the pen and starts writing.


End file.
